Disaster – averted

by Stuart on 14 June 2012

Morning, dear reader. And at 3rd Sector Towers it’s a sunny one, so life is looking up.

This was not the case a couple of days ago. I was working at my desk when the boss kindly brought me a glass of red wine. (I hasten to add that it was well into the evening.) A couple of minutes later, with not a drop drunk I reached to take a sheet of paper from the printer, misjudged the distance and knocked the entire glass all over my keyboard, a wireless aluminium Apple job. Apart from the horror of the wasted wine (you can’t wring out a keyboard like you can a shirt), what was this going to do to my keyboard?

The answer is to take out the batteries, and thoroughly rinse the thing in as close as you can get to de-ionised or distilled water. I had to make do with the filtered water in the jug, but I dutifully poured 3 litres of the stuff over and through the keyboard, and put it in the drainer with the cups and plates.

That was Tuesday. Since then the keyboard has been drying out and I’ve tried it daily. The first day the QWERTY row upwards didn’t work. Yesterday most of the keys worked, but curiously ‘B’ didn’t. Today it is back to normal.

Moral of the story? Keep liquids away from computer kit, and have a spare cheap and cheerful USB keyboard around so you can keep going while your real one dries out. And (c) put the wine glass so that you have to get up to drink from it, as then it is out of range of your arms.

I hope this cautionary tale will help if you, too, have a keyboard disaster.

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